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E-commerce giant Amazon reported stellar numbers in sales led by the pandemic-struck demand in online shopping. The company also reported a strong surge in its cloud computing business and Amazon Prime Video demand.
On Thursday, April 29, e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) reported stellar numbers for its Q1 earnings of 2021. The pandemic-fueled surge in online shopping has been a major boon for Amazon. During the first quarter, the company sales soared further 44% year-over-year to over $108 billion.
The company reported earnings per share of $15.79 against analysts’ expectations of $9.54. Even during the second quarter, Amazon further expects the momentum to continue. This has managed to allay investors’ fears of a business slowdown in the post-pandemic world.
Amazon is projecting an estimated revenue of $116 billion against Wall Street’s projections of $108.6 billion. Also, Amazon has confirmed that its much-awaited Prime Day shall happen in June. Typically, Amazon’s two-day mega-sale happens in July every year. Speaking about this year’s Prime Day schedule, CFO Brian Olsavsky said:
“In many areas, July is vacation month, so it might be better for customers, sellers and vendors to experiment with a different time period. We believe that it might be better timing later in [the second quarter], so that’s what we’re testing this year.”
Amazon Cloud Revenue Surges 32% in Q1
Apart from the e-commerce business showing strength, Amazon’s AWS cloud business also registered strong growth. The Q1 2021 revenue for the Amazon cloud business surged 32% against analysts’ expectation of 28% growth.
These AWS profitability numbers will certainly help the company carry further its expansion plans. The Amazon AWS unit alone contributed to $13.5 billion in revenue. This was a massive 12% of the company’s total revenue reported last quarter. Speaking about its AWS business, the Amazon CFO said:
“We have firm confidence that we offer a lot of advantages to AWS customers, from functionality to a vibrant and robust partner ecosystem. And then really we also have less downtime and better security, which I think is super important to all of our customers, especially security nowadays.”
On the other hand, company CEO Jeff Bezos also gave a glimpse into how its video-streaming service has been performing. During the pandemic, the Amazon Prime Video streaming service saw a strong surge due to the rising demand for onine home entertainment.
“As Prime Video turns 10, over 175 million Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year, and streaming hours are up more than 70% year over year,” said Bezos.
Amazon today has more than 200 million subscribers for its Prime services. This is 50 million more than the numbers during the beginning of 2020.
After Thursday’s results, Amazon stock price surged 2.3% in aftermarket hours. AMZN stock was trading at an all-time high of $3553 with the company’s market cap over $1.75 trillion.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
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